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Do you know Goa?

Do
you know Goa?

"Which
part of India did Francis Xavier arrive at in 1542?" If there are esoteric
questions in the air and small groups of people with pensive looks on their
faces huddled around tables, then it must be Trivia Night at the Old Toad Pub.

"Most English pubs have trivia
nights on Mondays," says Old Toad manager Simon Higgins. "It's typically a slow
night and this brings people out." The Old Toad --- a traditional English pub
at 277 Alexander Street --- has two trivia nights: Sundays and Mondays.

Teams on Sundays are limited to four
and compete for a jackpot. On Mondays, there's no limit to the number of team
members and no prize money, but winners do get a T-shirt and, "the prestige of
being a quiz winner," Higgins says.

Bill and Audrey Zufall, a
middle-aged couple, have been coming to Trivia Night since it began about 12
years ago. They arrive early, have dinner, and work on a crossword puzzle.

"We like this kind of thing," Bill
says. Audrey paused from her crossword puzzle and added, "We're the kind of
people who watch game shows." They're also part of the team to beat. "We win
pretty frequently," Audrey says. So frequently, in fact, that the pub
instituted a handicap system to level the playing field.

At the other end of the room, and
spectrum, is a group of current and former RIT students that has only been
coming since last summer. "It's better than going to a stupid bar, drinking and
being stupid," says Eric Berkow. They've yet to win, but are undaunted. "We
show up, drink, lose, and have fun," says Lin Sleboda.

None of the teams admit to doing any
preparation for the quiz. Most players read newspapers, watch TV, and have good
memories. "I just have an uncanny ability to remember nonsense that other
people don't," says regular Terry Schnurr.

Trivia Nights are Sundays at 9 p.m.
and Mondays at 9:30 p.m. 232-2626. (The answer to the trivia question above is
Goa. Du-uh).

---
Joseph Sorrentino

Life
after Jack

He
called it "pure bliss" during the State of the City, and he swears that's not
an exaggeration. Yes, it seems Mayor
Bill Johnson has been loving life since Maggie Brooks assumed her post as
Monroe County Executive. In fact, the change is so palpable, Johnson says, he
can literally feel it.

Of utmost importance to Johnson is
Brooks' recognition that "there's a lot of stuff going on between the city and
the county every hour of the day that was being adversely impacted by what was
going on at the top," he says. "She has begun to clear out those paths."

"What was going on at the top" of
course, was the acrimonious relationship between Johnson and former County
Executive Jack Doyle. But that's a thing of the past. Johnson uses a recent
consolidation discussion with the Council of Governments and the RUMP Group as
an example:

"They used to ask Doyle and me to
send reps, because they knew [consolidation] was a very divisive issue,"
Johnson says. "But after Doyle was leaving, the COG asked Maggie and me to
attend. So we went. And suddenly, a thought came into my mind: You know what?
If this were Doyle here, I'd have come to this meeting prepared to defend my
position. I would have been on edge. I would have been ready to go to the mat
with him. But at this meeting, people were throwing out ideas and I was responding,
Maggie was responding. It was a palpably different atmosphere. My whole body
felt more at ease."

As for Brooks, Johnson says she
doesn't receive enough credit for her intelligence. "She's a lot smarter than
people want to believe," he says. "There's nobody manipulating her. She
understands that there are things we need to get done, and that we can do it by
working together."

The
big gamble

Talk
continues to surface in the daily newspaper of locating a casino in downtown Rochester, possibly in the struggling
Sibley Building on Main Street. But to Mayor Bill Johnson, the casino idea is
no good.

"I don't see how anybody who truly
cares about this city would really want to be so quick to turn to this solution
when we have many more options at our disposal," he says.

Johnson refers to a recent trip he's
taken to Niagara Falls, where "you've got this nice glittering palace in the
heart of downtown, but it's surrounded by blight." He says he's seen similar
problems in Atlantic City and Detroit.

Any momentum for this project seems
to becoming directly from Wilmorite, Inc., whose subsidiaries own the Sibley
Building. Wilmorite Chairperson Thomas Wilmot has been eying the casino
business for years, and has been courting a branch of the Seneca Nation in
Oklahoma as a possible entrée into the casino business.

Johnson thinks Wilmot is just trying
to find a solution for the Sibley Building, which stands to lose its main
tenant if Monroe Community College locates its Advanced Technology Center in the
proposed Renaissance Square.

"MCC wants to move," Johnson says.
"This is an area where [County Executive] Maggie [Brooks] and I are still
trying to reconcile our differences. I'm still saying we don't have to move MCC
across the street. Using the logic that's been advanced that things have to be
built adjacent to this transit center, well the Sibley Building is not only
adjacent to it, but it's attached by a skyway into that complex. So there's
something going on there. I think that maybe in Wilmot's mind this is a way to
finally move that building in ways that he hasn't been able to move it before."

Good
business sense

It
may be another urban legend: that small businesses universally oppose raising the minimum wage because doing
so will keep them from preserving jobs or creating new ones. At any rate, some
local businesses aren't buying into that. They recently put their names to an
ongoing campaign --- led by labor, religious, and human rights groups in the "$51.5
Is Not Enough" coalition --- to boost the minimum wage significantly.

The signers of a March 4 statement
of support are: Genesee Co-op Federal Credit Union, Chimo's Sandwich Shop,
Hogan's Hideaway, Cheesy Eddie's, North Clinton Business Association, Rochester
Children's Nursery, Dicky's Restaurant, Women's Coffee Connection, Savory Thyme
Catering, Rudy's Oven, Clinton Pharmacy, and Foodlink. "Businesses owners
aren't heartless," they said in a joint statement. "We know that
paying them a higher wage results in less turnover, less training costs, and
more committed employees." A raise will benefit the whole community, they
said: It will "create a level playing field" so independent
businesses won't be chains that pay poverty wages.

Incidentally, State Senator Joe
Robach joined the effort. He said he's proud to be a co-sponsor of a bill
(already passed by the Assembly) that would raise the state minimum to $7.10.
As a member of the Senate's Republican majority, Robach may make an impression
--- not only with his call for a wage hike, but with his labor solidarity.

Kids
on the streets

The
fastest-growing homeless population
in Monroe County is between the ages of 16 and 21. According to a report
released last month by the Department of Human and Health Services, the county
provided emergency housing to 940 youth last year. That's up from 773 in 2002.

"They don't have [a] reason," says
Carla Palumbo, who sits on the county's Human Services Committee. "Their best
guess was that these are kids who end up too old to really go into the
foster-care system, with parents that are absent. They end up homeless."

On the surface, the report seems to
hold some very good news. Placement of homeless individuals and families
decreased by 6 percent in 2003. The county provided emergency housing to 7,991
families and individuals last year. That's down from 8,533 the year before.

But, Palumbo cautions, the report
shows that most people are becoming homeless because they've been evicted by
their primary tenant. "So it sounds like what's happening is people are
doubling up," she says.

The average cost for an emergency
placement in 2003 was $453. In total, the county made $3,625,893 in emergency
housing payments last year.

Seventy-eight percent of the clients
were placed in shelters and 22 percent in hotels. There were 1,830 placements
at the Cadillac Hotel. That's down from 2,318 in 2002.